O3b FM13, O3b FM14, O3b FM15, O3b FM16 – Soyuz-ST-B/Fregat-MT (VS18 ) – Kourou ELS – 09.03.2018

Автор zandr, 02.01.2018 19:11:11

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ЦитироватьПАРИЖ, 9 марта. /ТАСС/. Российская ракета-носитель "Союз", стартовавшая в пятницу вечером с космодрома в Куру (Французская Гвиана), успешно вывела на орбиту четыре спутника связи. Об этом сообщила вице-президент компании Arianespace по вопросам миссий, операций и закупок Люс Фабрегетт.
"Все четыре спутника успешно отделились от ракеты и вышли на орбиту", - сказала она. Фабрегетт отметила, что "это второй запуск с космодрома в Куру с начала этого года". "Поздравляю всех партнеров с этим успехом, - добавила она. - Я бы хотела выразить благодарность нашим российским партнерам, в частности госкорпорации "Роскосмос", РКЦ "Прогресс", за сотрудничество".


Подробнее на ТАСС:
http://tass.ru/kosmos/5019033

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tnt22

#162
Цитироватьzandr пишет:
Неочевидно как проводится мониторинг ветров на высотах от 1 до 15 км в районе старта за 10-15 минут до пуска
Насколько я понимаю, метеобаллоны никто и не думал запрещать - улетел, данные сбросил, решение приняли ДА/НЕТ...

P.S. Как пример, см запуск Paz с VAFB - 1-я попытка 2018-02-21.

tnt22

http://spaceflight101.com/soyuz-vs18/soyuz-vs-18-launches-o3b-f4/
ЦитироватьSoyuz Rocket Fires into Orbit with Fourth Group of O3b Network Satellites
March 9, 2018


Photo: Arianespace Webcast

A Russian-built Soyuz/Fregat rocket soared into the skies over the Guiana Space Center on Friday with the fourth set of O3b broadband satellites, joining twelve constellation craft launched in recent years to connect those parts of the world where Internet access is not readily available through conventional means.

The O3b quadruplets launched on Friday will provide expansion services and extend the operation of the constellation into the mid-2020s when fleet operator SES plans to have the next evolutionary step of the system ready to deliver even greater capacity on a global scale.

The 'Europeanized' Soyuz rocket – returning to French Guiana after a break of nearly ten months – lifted off fr om the edge of the Amazon jungle at 17:10 UTC, racing into mostly clear skies for a fast trip across the Atlantic Ocean on an equator-hugging trajectory. Soyuz provided a flawless ride and delivered the Fregat onto a sub-orbital arc from where it was up to the upper stage to dispatch the 700-Kilogram satellites into their desired orbit nearly 8,000 Kilometers in altitude right above the equator.
Спойлер

Image: Thales Alenia Space

Fregat first injected the stack into a preliminary orbit before firing a second time for a boost into an elliptical transfer orbit and a two-hour coast phase that took the vehicle halfway around the world for the critical circularization maneuver and pairwise separation of the O3b satellites. Arianespace confirmed that all satellites had been deployed into their target orbits and satellite manufacturer Thales Alenia Space reported all four were in communications with ground stations after a seemingly flawless Soyuz/Fregat mission – putting the checkmark behind the first of as many as four Soyuz launches from French Guiana this year.

O3b Networks was founded back in 2007 in an effort to connect the "Other 3 billion" – referring to the world's population without access to the Internet, particularly in developing countries and remote island states.


Image: O3b

The concept developed by the company was a constellation of satellites in equatorial Medium Earth Orbit – allowing a large coverage area around the equator to be served with a manageable number of satellites while also cutting the two-way signal travel time by placing the satellites at only 25% the distance of their counterparts parked in Geostationary Orbit.

The first set of four O3b satellites was lifted into orbit in 2013, but shortly after launch it became clear that they suffered from a problem with their transponders, causing a degradation of timing signals needed for the downlink of data. Corrective measures were put in place and 2014 saw two O3b quadruplet launches to bring the constellation to twelve members; however, only nine remain in active service after three of the first batch were demoted to a stand-by position due to their timing issues.


Photo: Arianespace/ESA/CNES/Optique Video du CSG

With the initial constellation in operation, O3b attracted a number of commercial customers from across the globe, including network providers on island states and other remote nations, commercial business through cruise ship operators and government contracts through the U.S. Department of Defence. SES acquired O3b as a wholly owned subsidiary in 2016 after the start-up's business model had proved itself.

The four satellites launched on Friday were part of an eight-satellite expansion order placed to Thales Alenia Space in 2015 to provide additional capacity for the constellation and extend services into the mid-2020s via the satellites' ten-year service lives. This batch of O3b satellites features some improvements in performance like higher throughput and processing speed, but is seamlessly compatible with the first generation of satellites already in orbit.

>> O3b Satellite & Constellation Overview


Photo: Arianespace/ESA/CNES/Optique Video du CSG

Each O3b satellite weighs 700 Kilograms at launch, including 141kg of maneuvering propellant, and hosts twelve steerable Ka-Band antenna assemblies on its Earth-facing deck – delivering ten customer beams and two gateway beams to connect remote terminals to terrestrial network gateways or provide point-to-point trunking services. Operating in the 4.3 GHz frequency band, each O3b satellite offers a data throughput in excess of 12 Gbit/s to create fiber-like trunking services and data backhaul directly to 3G and WiMAX cell towers.

The launch of the final four O3b satellites currently on order is planned in the first half of next year before constellation operator SES expects to upgrade to the follow-on system called O3b mPower, set to add a series of high-throughput satellites to the constellation starting in 2021. mPower will expand the constellation to global coverage, switch manufacturers to Boeing and leverage state of the art technology to enable the baseline seven-satellite constellation to deliver nearly 30,000 communications spot beams.


Photo: Arianespace Webcast

Preparations for the 18th Soyuz launch from French Guiana, the 1,885th overall, kicked into high gear last Friday when the assembled Soyuz rocket was moved from its MIK integration hall to the ELS launch pad wh ere it took its vertical launch position. The encapsulated payload stack was hoisted atop the rocket on Tuesday after the launch was pushed by three days to facilitate additional checks as part of the resumption of missions from the CSG after the anomalous Ariane 5 VA241 flight of January 25.

A launch rehearsal was run on Wednesday and the Launch Readiness Review green-lighted the mission on Thursday, allowing Soyuz to enter an eight-hour countdown operation. Four hours before the day's planned T-0, Soyuz began filling up on rocket-grade Kerosene followed by loading the vehicle with -183°C Liquid Oxygen around the L-3-hour mark. Soyuz also received Nitrogen and Helium to act as pressurization gas on the boost stages and Block I upper stage, respectively, and technicians pumped highly reactive Hydrogen Peroxide into the boosters and core stage to drive their engine pumps.


Photo: Arianespace Webcast

Towering 46 meters above the ELS launch pad, Soyuz was revealed at the one-hour mark when the protective Service Gantry retracted to clear the way for final preparations. Countdown operations had to be halted at T-11 minutes as Launch Controllers elected to defer the day's T-0 time to the second available instantaneous launch slot to provide time for an area of calmer upper level winds to move over the launch site near the town of Sinnamary.

As computers assumed full control of the countdown after a 33-minute delay, Soyuz pressurized its tanks and purged its engines before the first of two umbilical towers retracted from the rocket at the moment Soyuz was handed control of the final countdown steps.


Photo: Arianespace Webcast

The venerable booster soared to life at T-20 seconds when pumps began driving and igniters fired up on the four liquid-fueled boosters and core stage – soaring to an intermediate thrust level before ramping up to a collective launch thrust of over 420 metric ton-force to overcome counterweights and lift the vehicle off the ground.

Soyuz blasted off at precisely 17:10:06 UTC and rose vertically for less than fifteen seconds before starting its pre-programmed pitch and roll maneuvers to begin flying straight to the east on an equator-hugging trajectory similar to the initial flight path of Ariane 5 missions to Geotransfer Orbit.

Burning propellant at a rate of 1,600 Kilograms per second, Soyuz reached the speed of sound within one minute of liftoff and passed Maximum Aerodynamic Pressure 75 seconds into the mission as it cut through the dense layers of the atmosphere.

>> Soyuz 2-1B Overview


Photo: Arianespace Webcast


Photo: Arianespace Webcast

Soyuz shed its four boosters one minute and 58 seconds into the flight after each burned nearly 40 metric tons of propellant to help push the Soyuz to a speed of 1.65 Kilometers per second. Dropping the boosters into the Atlantic, Soyuz headed on powered by the four-chamber RD-108A engine alone, generating over 100 tf of thrust as the vehicle escaped the dense atmosphere.

Three minutes and 55 seconds into the mission, Soyuz passed 120 Kilometers in altitude and separated its two fairing halves to lose no-longer-needed weight on its way into orbit. Block A, the trusted core stage, raised the vehicle's speed to 3.75 Kilometers per second before the 27.8-meter long booster separated from the Block I upper stage in the typical hot staging sequence four minutes and 47 seconds into the flight.

Firing up its closed-cycle, 30-metric-ton-force RD-0124 engine, the modified Block I stage was tasked with a burn of four and a half minutes to lift the Orbital Unit onto a sub-orbital arc of -1,186 by 194 Kilometers. Separation of the Fregat upper stage was confirmed at T+9 minutes and 23 seconds, being sent off on a fairly complex four-burn mission to deliver its passengers to orbit.

Flying in its MT configuration with extended tanks, Fregat was loaded with 7,100 Kilograms of self-igniting propellant for consumption by its S5.92 engine to lift a total payload upmass of 3,198 Kilograms into Medium Earth Orbit. Its first task on Friday was transitioning the stack from a sub-orbital path into a stable Parking Orbit, firing up its 2,000kgf main engine on a four-minute burn one minute after separation from Soyuz, targeting a 160 by 205-Kilometer orbit, inclined 5.16 degrees.


Image: Arianespace Webcast

Reaching orbit, Fregat only coasted for eight and a half minutes before re-starting its main engine on the mission's longest burn of eight and a half minutes to boost the stack into an elliptical transfer orbit of 190 by 7,869 Kilometers, 3.88° – reaching its peak over the equator on the opposite side of the planet. Fregat performed as advertised and transitioned into a long coast phase of one hour and 22 minutes, designed to allow the stack to climb up to apogee for the circularization.

Having traveled halfway across the planet, Fregat fired up again one hour and 52 minutes into the flight on a burn of just over 5 minutes, tasked with circularizing the orbit at 7,830 Kilometers and reducing its inclination to 0.04 degrees. The first two O3b satellites, FM14 & FM15, departed their cylindrical adapter at T+2 hours and one minute, being sent off in opposite directions to avoid re-contact.


Image: Arianespace Webcast

Separation of the remaining two occurred 23 minutes later after Fregat conducted a 17-second boost with its settling thrusters to create a drift rate between the two pairs and ease the process of phasing them into the operational constellation orbiting 8,063 Kilometers above the equator.

Arianespace declared mission success after tracking data showed a nominal orbit was achieved and Thales Alenia confirmed all four satellites had checked in with ground stations in good health – ready to enter a multi-week commissioning phase before entering the active constellation.

For Arianespace, the next mission is right around the corner as Ariane 5 aims to return to flight on March 21st with the Superbird-8 and HYLAS-4 communications satellites.
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tnt22

Запись видеотрансляции Arianespace (EN)
ЦитироватьArianespace VS18 - Live Launch (EN)

  arianespace

Трансляция началась 5 часов назад
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHHxPjp_Fsghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHHxPjp_Fsg (3:41:01)

Для франкофилов (FR) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNhxSkD44Yo (3:39:46)

tnt22

#165
Подготовка к пуску (CNES CSG)
ЦитироватьPréparation du lancement du 9 mars 2018

  CNES CSG

Опубликовано: 9 мар. 2018 г.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnOlN1lUa5Mhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnOlN1lUa5M (1:00)

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НОРАД обнаружил один объект запуска

0 TBA - TO BE ASSIGNED
1 43231U 18024A   18068.86622170 -.00000030  00000-0  00000+0 0  9996
2 43231   0.0437 337.5360 0005538  19.9646  57.3052  5.12175512    03
43231 / 2018-024A
Epoch (UTC) 2018-03-09 20:47:21, 7830  km x 7846 km x 0.044°, 281.15 min

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Подоспели ещё 3 объекта запуска
0 TBA - TO BE ASSIGNED
1 43232U 18024B   18068.86702679 -.00000030  00000-0  00000+0 0  9990
2 43232   0.0443 328.3030 0014115 300.0594 147.8584  5.12719834    06

0 TBA - TO BE ASSIGNED
1 43233U 18024C   18068.86782235 -.00000030  00000-0  00000+0 0  9997
2 43233   0.0410 286.5673 0003893 155.1233 336.1695  5.12579610    01

0 TBA - TO BE ASSIGNED
1 43234U 18024D   18068.86309568 -.00000030  00000-0  00000+0 0  9992
2 43234   0.0516 349.1331 0005178 135.1467 284.8872  5.12720936    06

43232 / 2018-024B
Epoch (UTC) 2018-03-09 20:48:31, 7808 km x 7848 km x 0.044°, 280.85 min


43233 / 2018-024C
Epoch (UTC) 2018-03-09 20:49:39, 7825 km x 7836 km x 0.041°, 280.92 min


43234 / 2018-024D
Epoch (UTC) 2018-03-09 20:42:51, 7821 km x 7836 km x 0.052°, 280.85 min

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zandr

#171
Цитироватьtnt22 пишет:
Цитироватьzandr пишет:
Неочевидно как проводится мониторинг ветров на высотах от 1 до 15 км в районе старта за 10-15 минут до пуска
Насколько я понимаю, метеобаллоны никто и не думал запрещать - улетел, данные сбросил, решение приняли ДА/НЕТ...

P.S. Как пример, см запуск Paz с VAFB - 1-я попытка 2018-02-21.
Чтобы метеобаллон за полчаса поднялся на 10 км, вертикальная скорость должна быть 6 м/с. Так и есть? И пускают каждые 15 минут? И хоть кто-нибудь выкладывал видео запуска баллона на фоне готовящейся к пуску ракеты?

P.S. Нашёл посты про баллоны. Но остаётся изумление, что баллонное зондирование на 10 км дало возможность поменять решение за полчаса.

tnt22

#172
Цитироватьzandr пишет:
Чтобы метеобаллон за полчаса поднялся на 10 км, вертикальная скорость должна быть 6 м/с. Так и есть?
Google, Yandex, Wiki etc. - в помощь.
Например,
http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/special/2003/yamagami/03.shtml
Цитировать
Цитировать
Figure 5 Altitude Curve of BU60-1
Прикидочная оценка - 10 км примерно за 36 мин (3 мелких деления шкалы) => V = 4.6 м/с.
Дальше ройте сами, желательно по ключу "шар-пилот"...

tnt22

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/03/09/four-o3b-satellites-launched-to-beam-internet-to-developing-world/
ЦитироватьFour O3b satellites launched to beam Internet to developing world
March 9, 2018 Stephen Clark


A Soyuz rocket lifts off Friday fr om the Guiana Space Center with four O3b broadband satellites. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Photo Optique Video du CSG – S. Martin

Four satellites set to join O3b's expanding broadband network successfully launched Friday on top of a Russian-built Soyuz booster fr om French Guiana, joining 12 other craft linking developing nations, far-flung islands, cruise ships and other hard-to-reach locales with the Internet.

Mounted on a carrying dispenser inside the Soyuz rocket's nose cone, the four O3b spacecraft will grow the satellite-based broadband network's reach and coverage, answering demand for more bandwidth fr om the initiative's current and prospective customers.

The satellites lifted off at 1710:06 GMT (12:10:06 p.m. EST; 2:10:06 p.m. French Guiana time) from the Guiana Space Center, a spaceport carved from the edge of the Amazon rainforest on the northeastern coast of South America. A Soyuz-2.1b rocket pushed the O3b payloads into a mostly sunny sky after 33-minute delay to allow for improved wind conditions aloft.
Спойлер
The Soyuz booster pitched on a downrange trajectory east from the European-run space center, and dropped four kerosene-fueled first stage boosters into the Atlantic Ocean around two minutes after liftoff. Engines on the Soyuz core stage and third stage fired in succession, and a Russian Fregat upper stage ignited to place the O3b satellites into a preliminary parking orbit.

Two more Fregat upper stage burns placed the O3b payloads close to their targeted deployment altitude of 4,865 miles (7,830 kilometers) above the equator.

The first pair of O3b satellites released from the Fregat upper stage at 1911 GMT (2:11 p.m. EST), followed by a brief rocket firing to move to a nearby position for separation of the other two spacecraft at 1932 GMT (2:32 p.m. EST).

Officials confirmed all four satellites, built by Thales Alenia Space, established contact with ground teams a few minutes later. The reception of telemetry verified the spacecraft were in the correct orbit and healthy following the launch.

Arianespace, the French company in charge of Soyuz launch operations at the Guiana Space Center, declared the mission a success.

"Arianespace is delighted to announce that the four O3b satellites have been safely separated as planned in their targeted Medium Earth Orbit," said Luce Fabreguettes, the launch company's executive vice president for missions, operations and purchasing.

Friday's launch was the 18th time a Russian Soyuz rocket has lifted off from French Guiana since October 2011, and the 1,885th flight by a Soyuz rocket variant overall.


One of the four O3b satellites launched Friday. Credit: Thales Alenia Space

The flight plan for the satellites called for each craft to extend its power-generating solar panels, then complete a series of in-orbit checks. The spacecraft will slightly raise their altitudes to join the other 12 satellites in the O3b fleet, then enter commercial service by mid-May.

"We are very excited to have four more O3b satellites in orbit, and we look forward to them joining the constellation in May and serving our customers around the globe," said Steve Collar, the CEO of SES Networks who will take over as chief executive of the overall SES enterprise next month. "The demand for high performance bandwidth and networks continues to grow and, as the only successful non-geostationary broadband system, we need these new satellites to fulfil demand across a wide range of verticals and applications."

The four new satellites join 12 others launched on three previous Soyuz rocket flights from French Guiana in 2013 and 2014.

SES completed the purchase of 100 percent of O3b Networks' ownership in 2016, soon after O3b ordered eight additional satellites from Thales Alenia Space in response to growing demand. The next four O3b craft will launch on another Soyuz mission from French Guiana in early 2019.

The O3b satellites carry Ka-band broadband beams to relay high-speed Internet connectivity to far-flung communities, industrial facilities and mobile users.

"From connecting underserved communities and meaningfully transforming lives through improved broadband access, to delivering state of the art satellite-enabled network services to ships, planes and government platforms, our O3b fleet offers unique and differentiated performance and is driving our customers' businesses forward," Collar said in a press release.

The O3b network provides connectivity to conventional Internet Service Providers, governments, schools and universities, remote factories, oil and gas platforms, humanitarian missions, resorts and the maritime industry, including luxury cruise ships owned by Royal Caribbean.

The O3b satellites fly in a medium-altitude orbit more than four times closer to Earth than the geostationary belt more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator, wh ere most large telecommunications craft reside. That reduces the latency of an Internet connection established through the O3b satellites, or the time required for a user to send a request and get a response.

The idea behind O3b, which was named for the "Other 3 billion" people without reliable Internet access, was to use satellites to link places difficult to reach with terrestrial fiber networks.


Artist's concept of a part of the O3b satellite fleet. Credit: SES

From Medium Earth Orbit, the O3b satellites cover a swath of the planet ranging between approximately 45 degrees north and south latitude.

SES Networks says the O3b network has beamed Internet signals for the U.S. Department of Defense and the United Nations, and provided connectivity to numerous island nations: Palau, Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, the Cook Islands, East Timor and America Samoa.

African markets have also taken up O3b usage, with Internet services beamed to Chad, South Sudan, Somalia, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, Angola and Madagascar.

The Galapagos Islands and Easter Island have also received Internet services through the O3b satellites, along with parts of Peru and the Amazon basin in Brazil.

The satellites launched Friday will add 38 percent to O3b's broadband capacity, officials said. They also debut an improved antenna design and a better encryption standard, offering a performance upgrade over the original 12 O3b satellites.

"There's not one segment that's really driven us to do this," said John-Paul Hemingway, executive vice president of product, marketing and strategy at SES Networks. "All the (market) segments are doing well, but we just needed more capacity. We have actually pre-sold some of this capacity, but there's a lot more capacity available with this (additional) 38 percent to react to customer growth.

"Of course, we're very positive about that because we are planning to launch another four satellites within the next 12 months, some time in the first half of '19," Hemingway said in a phone interview with Spaceflight Now.

"This was the fourth launch performed by Arianespace for our O3b fleet and we have yet another batch of O3b satellites planned for 2019 on their Soyuz rocket as well," said Martin Halliwell, chief technology officer at SES. "This is the beauty of our MEO constellation: it can easily be scaled to respond to demand in an agile manner while beams can be allocated dynamically to wh ere the demand is, and thus deliver low-latency connectivity wh ere our customers need it. By augmenting our fleet, we will offer more throughput, more coverage, and more capabilities to our customers."

SES last year announced an upgraded network that will begin launching in 2021.

The O3b mPower fleet will consist of seven satellites built by Boeing that will launch into the same roughly 5,000-mile-high (8,000-kilometer) orbit currently occupied by the first-generation O3b satellites.

Once operational, the O3b mPower network will reach many more parts of the world, meeting the entire data traffic needs of some small countries, SES officials said when they unveiled the program in September.

Billed as the first "multi-terabit" satellite constellation, O3b mPower will multiply the capability of the current-generation O3b fleet. Each O3b mPower satellite will carry 4,000 Ka-band beams, up from 10 on each of the current O3b spacecraft.
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НОРАД зафиксировал 5-й объект запуска (ПМСМ - РБ)

0 TBA - TO BE ASSIGNED
1 43235U 18024E   18069.02893212 -.00000028  00000-0  00000+0 0  9993
2 43235   0.0771 344.1786 0013051 349.8922  25.9037  5.21369800    04

43235 / 2018-024E
Epoch (UTC) 2018-03-10 00:41:39, 7652 km x 7689 km x 0.077°, 276.18 min

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https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/worldwide/space/press-release/fourth-batch-o3b-satellites-orbit
Цитировать
FOURTH BATCH OF O3B SATELLITES IN ORBIT
| 09.03.2018 |

Cannes, March 9th, 2018 – The four latest satellites in the O3b constellation built by Thales Alenia Space for SES Networks were successfully launched today from the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana (South America) by a Soyuz rocket.

These four new satellites will expand the current O3b constellation of 12 satellites, which have been operational in orbit since 2014. Together, they will offer more capacity, improved coverage, greater efficiency and even higher reliability.
Спойлер


Thanks to these high-performance satellites, SES Networks, the SES business unit dedicated to global data networks, provides broadband services to telecom and mobile network operators, Internet service providers, enterprises, and customers in the mobility, energy and government sectors.

O3b satellites are positioned at an altitude of 8,000 km along the equator, four times closer to the Earth than satellites in geostationary orbit. Operating in the Ka-band, they offer telecommunications and Internet connectivity services at a fibre-like speed across the globe.
Цитировать"After having delivered 46 telecom satellites in 2017, Thales Alenia Space is delighted to celebrate the kickoff of 2018 launches with our long-standing partners, SES and Arianespace," said Jean Loïc Galle, President and Chief Executive Officer of Thales Alenia Space. "This latest cluster of four satellites joins its sister satellites in orbit, after their launches in 2013 and 2014, to boost the constellation's service capacity. We are proud to help our customer SES grow their market, and we are ready and willing to offer new telecom solutions that provide even higher performance, with more integrated and digital systems."
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tnt22

НОРАД частично идентифицировал объекты запуска

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НОРАД идентифицировал все объекты запуска

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https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/03/12/photos-soyuz-rocket-soars-into-space-from-french-guiana/
ЦитироватьPhotos: Soyuz rocket soars into space from French Guiana
March 12, 2018 | Stephen Clark

A Soyuz rocket launched Friday with four commercial satellites to expand broadband Internet coverage in remote parts of the world, climbing into orbit from the Guiana Space Center positioned on the northeastern shore of South America.
Спойлер
The Russian-made rocket lifted off at 1710:06 GMT (12:10:06 p.m. EST; 2:10:06 p.m. French Guiana time) Friday after a 33-minute hold to wait for improved weather conditions.

The Soyuz rocket's engines, fed by kerosene and liquid oxygen, steered the booster east from the European-run spaceport in South America, guiding it on a trajectory over the Atlantic Ocean as it soared into space with four O3b broadband communications satellites.

Friday's launch was the 18th flight of a Soyuz rocket from the Guiana Space Center under the auspices of a Russian-European partnership with oversight from Arianespace, the commercial company which manages, operates and markets Ariane 5, Soyuz and Vega launches from French Guiana.

Read our full story for details on the mission.

The video and images below show the Soyuz rocket's liftoff from French Guiana with the fourth quartet of O3b broadband satellites for SES.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjFTRxlUeZs
(video 0:57)


Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Photo Optique Video du CSG


Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Photo Optique Video du CSG – S. Martin


Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Photo Optique Video du CSG – S. Martin


Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Photo Optique Video du CSG – S. Martin


Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Photo Optique Video du CSG – G. Barbaste
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